The present invention relates to a multi-student teaching laboratory station particularly adapted for university chemistry classes. For use in both classroom and laboratory environments, such a station should provide the students with a flat work surface, an unobstructed view of other students and the instructor, conventional laboratory features for conducting chemical experiments such as sinks, faucets, gas outlets and electrical connections and an inventive fume capture and exhaust system over the work surface with sufficient height and width for effectively capturing and removing fugitive and other noxious emissions resulting from spills or the experiments conducted on the table.
While a variety of work stations have been developed for capturing, containing and exhausting fumes and vapors generated by the work being conducted thereon, such stations typically employ a form of enclosure, such as a chemical fume hood, that encloses the work space to effect the capture and exhaust. Such enclosed stations, even if made of transparent material, would not be well suited for classroom or demonstration applications as the students' view of the instructor would be obstructed by these structures. An example of such a work station is found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,428,408. Other clean air work stations have been developed in which air is drawn inwardly under a table by a fan, redirected along a vertical curvilinear path and back over the flat work surface of the table. While such a design can provide airflow both at and above the table surface level to better capture the emissions from both spills and the open ends of beakers and flasks sitting on heating units on the work surface, the panels for redirecting the airflow again are view obstructing so that such apparatus does not provide the pedagogical requirements of Applicant's air station and may not provide a means for exhausting the contaminated flow. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,095,918.
Another system of which Applicant is aware that was developed to provide ventilating air to control solder fume and which is not view obstructing is disclosed in an article entitled Development of a Push-pull Ventilation System to Control Solder Fume, authored by S. I. Watson, J. R. Cain, H. Cowie and J. W. Cherrie, published in 2001 by The Annals of Occupational Hygiene, Vol. 45, No. 8 pp. 669-676. While the solder fume control system disclosed therein would not obstruct the student view, its ventilating airflow was limited to the surface of the work station and thus would not capture fumes above the table surface that would contaminate the air proximate the students' faces.
The air station of the present invention allows the students to perform experiments in a teaching lab setting without obstructing student sight lines to the instructor in the laboratory while providing a highly efficient “push-pull” ventilation system to capture fumes from the surface of the station and from lab vessels resting thereon and exhaust those fumes out of the lab thereby minimizing the exposure of the students to the fumes and odors generated from the classroom experiments.